COVID-19 Policy Ignores “Good Science”

Since my last article on the COVID-19 pandemic and policy entitled, “Growing and Groaning into the ‘New Normal’,” we are beginning to see various degrees of progress in opening up more of the essential services of our economy.  Our elected leaders are realizing the great cost and resultant damage that is resulting from having chosen a policy of locking down and socially distancing the human population.   Many now believe that we were wrong to isolate entire populations as opposed to isolating the vulnerable and the infected as was done in past successful handlings of outbreaks.

Still, there is much controversy.  We have taken different sides on whether the policies of the current administration and respective state governors are too lenient or too restrictive.  When evidence that contradicts a person’s belief is presented, the frequent response is, “It depends on who you listen to.”  And, this is certainly a good point.  So, I’ve been looking carefully at the credentials of those who are vocal and influencing policy.

In view of the ongoing uncertainties and controversy over policies to “open up the economy,” this article simply directs the reader to some points of evidence that ought to have been considered three months ago.  The evidence comes from an informative YouTube video, produced by Dave Cullen on Computing Forever, entitled “MUST WATCH: Debunking the Narrative (With Prof. Dolores Cahill).  I have anticipated that many readers will not which to take the time to view all of this long video.  Therefore, I have selected some important segmentsof the video and provided links where readers can "jump in" to hear specific points on COVID-19 science and  policy.  At each "jump in point," you will hear the jist of a key point within 3 minutes at which time, you can stop viewing.  

I present these key points as an example of what we all ought to be looking for as we listen to “authorities, then consider carefully in a spirit of prayer how we ought to think about the issue, and then decide whether or not to contact our elected officials.

Credentials and Connections of the Speaker
Dave Cullen's valuable interview is with Dr. Dolores Cahill, an Irish scientist with degrees in molecular genetics and immunology.  She also has decades of global scale experience in antibody research.  Dr. Cahill is also chairperson of the Irish Freedom Party which advocates separation of Ireland from the European Union.  Political connections?  Certainly, but who among major scientific voices doesn’t?  Please listen HERE to her background and then we’ll address her scientific integrity.

Are We Using “Good Science?”
["Good science" has been defined elsewhere.] Dr. Cahill’s research on antibodies worldwide has been scientifically validated, in part because of her own effort to establish standards of research integrity.  She explains that research fraud is regarded as a criminal offense in Germany, where it is reported to the police, the fraudulent scientist’s name is published, and then he or she loses funding for 10 years.  In the process of her discussion, we learn some of the basics of how the rampant rise in scientific fraud can be controlled.  Also, Dr. Cahill addresses how the lockdown policy was “anti-scientific” and “anti-nature” because it has ignored the importance of the human immune system and how we need to beef up our immunity through good nutrition and vitamins.  Listen HERE to her comments on the efforts to assure global progress, accountability, and valid publications of results in antibody research and research in general.

Will the Authority Take Responsibility?
Science naturally refutes false hypotheses as part of progress in pursuit of a true understanding of phenomena.  So, the claims of science can change.  However, scientists who speak through the media ought to “own up” when new research refutes their previous claims.  Of particular concern to many is the amount of seemingly unquestioned authority that has been granted to Dr. Anthony Fauci.  But recent media reports like this one by Tucker Carlson this evening point out how Dr. Fauci has changed his recommendations several times in ways that seem untethered to epidemiology and immunology.  In view of this point, you will be encouraged to hear Dr. Cahill place her scientific reputation on the line to make three statements about the COVID-19 virus.

First, the Coronavirus is not as dangerous as it is claimed to be.  Second, once a person has had the virus their immune system clears it after 10 days and they are immune for life and should be able to function in the world without isolation.  And third, Dr. Cahill is offering her recommendation to the Irish minister of health that the lockdown in Ireland be stopped within the next 10 days with appropriate provisions for protection of vulnerable individuals and instructions for all others as they return to their normal activities.  Listen HERE to her confident recommendations.

“Good Science” Refutes Lockdown Policy
Finally, the main point of much of Dave Cullen’s video interview with Dr. Cahill is her reasoned interpretation of the epidemiological data on COVID-19.  In this segment, you will see a chart of U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) showing the percentage of hospital visits due to influenza-like illnesses during the past thirty weeks dating back into late autumn, 2019.  You will want to hear Dr. Cahill explain how these CDC data support her claim and the claim of an increasing number of epidemiologists that the lockdown was not necessary. 

Specific points Dr. Cahill makes are as follows:  First, our bodies house hundreds of thousands of different viruses and it is necessary for the well being of our “micro-biome” within our bodies that we naturally come into contact with viruses and bacteria.  Second, during the flu season this year, from December until April, there were three major viruses circulating the globe; and the third was COVID-19.  Third, COVID-19 had its peak in the US on March 22 and people were at peak infection ten days before.  Then, most of the population in America cleared the virus within 10 days and then the threat was essentially gone.  In Dr. Cahill’s words, “there was absolutely no need for lockdown,” even in the early weeks of the pandemic.  Listen HERE for a discussion of these data and the implications for policy decisions in the days ahead.

Thank you for reading, and I thank Brian, one of my former students at Cedarville University, for referring me to this video.  As always, I invite “Comments” as we continue to seek to be informed and share information and opinion in a reasoned and polite manner.

Fundamentals of Conservation, Part 1 "Serving with" Our Creator -- Article #3 Knowing His Heart

Our recent Oikonomia entries on “Fundamentals of Conservation” have emphasized that biblical environmental stewardship, or “biblical conservation” is truly “con-service” or serving with creation. But to serve with creation requires a knowledge of and obedience to what matters to God based upon knowledge of His Holy Scriptures.  In our May Oikonomia, we emphasized that those who would practice biblical conservation must share a child’s eagerness to learn about the world and to submit eagerly to God’s plans for creation as revealed in Scripture.  But, how can we develop and apply child-like faith in God’s Truth in a world that seems increasingly antagonistic, particularly toward Judeo-Christian truth claims?   The answer lies in Christ’s instruction to His disciples and to us.

Before His death and resurrection, Christ prayed for His disciples and all of us who would follow Him later:  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth (John 17: 16-17).  Although we are in the world, we can pursue God’s truth through prayer and meditation in His Word.  Without it, our thinking and our actions toward creation are distorted and limited in ultimate value.   Unfortunately, increasing numbers of people deny that the Bible has anything to say about the origin, purpose, and destiny of creation.  Therefore, it is important that we emphasize in this entry that conservers of creation must ultimately be “obedient conservers of Truth.”

Jesus Christ, the Creator, has already come into His creation full of grace and truth (John 1: 14b) to bring us Eternal Life through faith both here on Earth and in our Life to come on the New Earth.  Therefore, would-be steward conservationists should recognize that every act that is intended to do good toward the Earth should be done with the reality that unless the contributor has individually reconciled with God and accepted His atonement for sin, he or she is on a path to eternal Hell.  Such a path is quite divergent from the path of the Earth which has a much brighter future.  Therefore, it stands to reason that God-pleasing stewards of creation must know something of God’s heart for the creation and be able to express His will in words and in acts of conservation.

Smokey Bear poster (1944):  We are beginning to
recover from this false view of land stewardship.

Today as a case in point, many are wondering about the “State of the Earth” and what actions we should take as stewards to conserve the life support system of Earth.  But the more we study the biosphere the more complex we realize it is.  Conservation efforts once thought to be wise—e.g. saving forests by preventing forest fires, saving wildlife populations by restricting hunting in the absence of natural predators, or saving wildlife populations by importing alien species to control them—all have produced some unintended consequences.   One would think such consequences would be cause for humility in our science.

I am concerned that the increasingly politically driven efforts to thwart the alleged human-caused climate change may end up as yet another set of unintended consequences.  Most scientists would agree that “there is no such thing as ‘settled science’.”  Yet today, in spite of scientific evidence on both sides of the question of human-caused climate change, each side of the argument seeks to silence or ignore the other.  Many scientists find it difficult to resist the strong and tempting offers of large research grants which lead to more publications and professional advancement.  A scriptural approach to this temptation is to insist on open dialog among those whose data contradict, perhaps because they have taken different research or because they use different assumptions in their climate models.  A true scientific understanding of creation requires open, honest dialog, rigorous hypothesis testing, skepticism, peer review, and avoidance of overstating conclusions.  We have called this “good science.”

The scientist Johannes Kepler described science as "thinking God's thoughts after Him."  It ought to follow that obedient conservers of creation use “good science” as a means to accurately “speak” on behalf of their Creator about His creation.  We might liken this relationship based on truth to a good speechwriter who seeks to capture a sense of the values and passion of the one he or she serves.  For example, Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, the “great communicator” in the early 1980’s.  In her 2001 NY Times bestseller, When Character Was King, Noonan attributes Reagan’s commitment to truth and truth-telling as the basis for his effectiveness as the world leader credited with the eventual fall of Soviet communism.   She writes:

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev

Ronald Reagan loved the truth.   We all do or say we do, but for Reagan it was like fresh water, something he needed and wanted.  He loved the truth for a number of reasons, a primary one of which is that he thought it…uniquely constructive.  He thought that by voicing it you were beginning to make things better.  He thought the truth is the only foundation on which can be built something strong and good and lasting—because only truth endures.  Lies die.  – (When Character Was King, p. 200)

Peggy Noonan illustrates how the power of spoken truth through President Reagan brought change to people, governments, and the world.   Unlike many American leaders during the era of Soviet domination of much of Asia and Eastern Europe, Reagan spoke the truth about Soviet totalitarianism without apology.  His message reached the Soviet prisons where Russian dissidents began to hear it whispered by their guards, or through radio broadcasts.  Noonan shares the testimony of one Russian dissident, Anatoly Shchransky:

Sometimes he and other men would empty out the toilets and the sinks and whisper to each other through the pipes.  Sometimes they used code, from cell to cell.  And there were other ways he didn’t want to talk about.  But he wanted me to know that there were times when Ronald Reagan spoke that the gulag would explode with a great racket of taps, knocks and whispers as they heard what he said and passed it on.

Some of Reagan’s words of truth that were whispered and tapped through Soviet prisons were probably ones he spoke to the British Parliament, on June 8 1982:   Here is the enduring greatness of the British contribution to mankind, the great civilized ideas:  individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under God.

Eventually, the iron curtain was torn open, the wall came down, and cell doors holding political dissidents swung open to provide freedom from the oppression of Soviet communism because of the words and the actions of Ronald Reagan and others who spoke the truth.  Although today the scourge of totalitarian governments under communism and Islamic extremists threaten and destroy individual freedom and plunge civil societies back into darkness, there still exists within the hearts of many who have not been broken and discouraged the desire to be free and to participate in a society of the self-governed. 

And mankind can no more create and maintain responsible government by the people than he can function effectively in the larger sphere of trying to practice conservation of the planet.  At least, not unless he understands the truth that our rights and privileges come from above, from Almighty God, Who has made us stewards, serving at His behest. 

And how can we serve God, and keep (serve with) creation without walking in close obedience to God through His Word?  Just as a speechwriter must know the mainspring of truth that drives her boss in order to help him communicate his or her convictions, so we must know the heart of God through His Scriptures if we are to do anything worthwhile and lasting toward our neighbor and the Earth.  Out of this intimacy of relationship through the Word of Truth, we can both serve God and serve with creation—and do so with the right motives, passion, and purpose whispered and tapped into our souls by our Heavenly Father.